My late husband, a third generation Marine, died in Tehran protecting a US Intelligence asset. He was not a loser. That person calls himself a "Christian" and those who follow him call themselves "Christians." They are not following Christ's leadership. John did.
While there is lots to criticize about American education, namely the over emphasis on sports, as a long time educator I observed that you have to have the cooperation of the student in some way. I had a government class with no college prep types and because most of them wanted to graduate, they did the work as best they could. Sadly, a lot of them were apathetic about politics and voting. In the few years I taught government, I had one student fail twice and part of that was because he had no encouragement from home. When I first started in the middle 70s, students could make more working in the woods than we did. That did not last and they became more interested in graduating. I have known many teachers who have made a difference for their students. Now with all the chaos created by the pandemic and the wing nuts who want to decide what books kids can read and what can be taught, it has become even a more difficult job.
I like your comment about the wingnuts and the crippling of education: banning books and sanitizing history. As a matter of fact, history should be a little more unsanitized in regards to the westward expansion and some of the wars.
It is amazing to me that what people believe about American history. For me it is always an ongoing process to learn more and it is often not pretty at all. When I was growing up, all of this was under the table, so to speak. NBC news had segment tonight on some students at high schools in north Texas and how upset they are with the removal of hundreds of books and the the refusal to address certain subject matter. The students are organized and they are all very articulate. They actually gave me some hope since they didn't accept it sitting down. My husband has interesting ancestry in terms of the movement west. Some of his ancestors were white people coming in wagon trains and viewing Native Americans as something in the way. He also has Lakota ancestry which puts an entirely different spin on the idea of bringing European values and "civilization" to the West. As I view the current situation, what we have is destruction in a relatively short time.
There are some very good opinion pieces in the NYT about why X is so popular. Both articles relate to emotion rather than cognitive. I ran out of the ability to gift.Paul Krugman & Jamelle Bouie. At the end of Mr Bouie's article , it references another article about why X lies
Technically he is an American citizen: his grandfather was born in Germany, so he is a third generation American. However, his behaviour shows that he is culturally some small step up from mafia, doesn't know the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, so you're right imho, that he is not a Christian.
I was thinking that an Amercian citizen commiting treason against the institution he ws elected to serve, is not a true American, but just a traitor. Technically, you are right, he is a third generation immigrant. Yes, I must be more careful about the leaps I make. Thanks!
THATS ! A Fat AMEN ! " DESCERNMENT DAY !" ( The JUDGMENT ) Is NOT, Going to Bode Well. Even I, AM Supposed to Pray, for him, SOMEHOW ! ( LORD/GOD !, have Mercy ! )
Just have to name a 10 Commandment if you want a quote. Here's a good one for him." I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes when I lay my vengeance on them." Ezekial
EZEKIAL , Was Telling IT !, How it Is ! GOD !, Help MANKIND ! To Realize, God Does LOVE!, BUT GOD, is ALSO a JUST GOD ! There will be No 'FILTH !, in HEAVEN ! Read : John 14, Verse 6
Grandfather was a draft dodger. Left Germany just before WWI and wanted to return right after. Germans refused him readmittance. He's stuck in America. and gets into shady real estate deals some of which include brothels. So you see some of trump's behavior was inherited.
ABSOLUTLY, a PLASTIC CHRISTIAN ! ( Remember the ' Two CORINTHIANS Story ! ? ) Our VETERANS ..= SUCKERS , and LOSERS ??!! he NEEDS , as Much Prayer, as The PHAROH ! ( BUT !, That, Didn't Help him !!!, he Got WASHED AWAY ! ) MERCY !!
Death star is not a patriot, a Christian, a decent person. Rather he is a festering cancer on the body politic and a true loser as evidenced by his many failed businesses. He represents all that is bad in humankind.
I never understood the appeal. All he has to do is open his mouth and he reveals his fetid ignorance. That is why I must assume that he is merely a tool, but a tool gone wild with his own imagined "power".
Having known ignorant people who seem to like to remain that way, I can understand his appeal. I had an ex-classmate tell me that she wouldn't want to be well educated like me. I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't want to be a Christian like her, but I refrained. People often fear the educated and their reaction is to sneer and be rude. And follow someone who sticks it to libs and other assorted "dangerous' people. It's loving the class clown.
Ok, but WHY would any sane person want to follow the class clown? A string - a very long, loud, string - of fools: is that what America has devolved to?
You are on the mark. I really was thinking of so many of our Repug elected leaders. But, of course, they were hustling for their suppers just like MSM.
K Barnes, he Definitly, is a 'tool' , of lucifer ! MANKIND, is Now going to Witness, The " TIP !, of the ICEBURG ! " ( Reference, back, to the TITANIC !! ) Murdock, Couldn't AVOID IT !
Of course trumpers are screaming that Biden (even though he played sports) got deferred 5 x like trump. The major difference here is that Biden has respect for our soldiers. He would never support someone like Eddie Gallagher.
Thank you Sabrina, for your sacrifice, and for John's courage and Honor. Our country runs on the blood of heroes--something the so-called "Christians" will never grasp, because they don’t understand the sacrifice of the One they claim to believe in....
So sorry for your loss. Thank you and John for your sacrifices. It is so appreciated.
My uncle was a Marine in the Pacific theater of WWII. He was killed in battle in March 1945, just a few months before the war ended. I did not know him. Every Memorial Day, my family has always made a point to remember and to honor all of our brave fighting men and women, especially those who have passed on.
I watched the ceremony for General Milley’s retirement and changing of the guard it’s entirety. You can find it on The White House.gov. It was a simple, beautiful event that underscored the extreme sacrifices our service people and their families make in defense of our nation . It also underscored the mutual respect President Biden and General Milley have for one another. I’m glad I watched it. Such a welcome contrast to TFG.
Thank you, Susan. I've been on a little bit of a holiday and missed that. I have tremendous respect for General Milley, and want to watch the ceremony to honor him and all the other military members who lived up to their commitment to the Constitution and simple honor.
Many of us can add quite a few names to your Memorial Day roster Ally. In addition to those painful absolute losses like Sky's. It's enough for me to think you'll be playing for every one of those fathers and sons and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and mothers who went to work at places like Curtis Wright in Paterson, including my mom when my dad was slogging around on Okinawa... Thank you for your tributes to all who made sacrifices for our Democracy.
My father was there too. Earned a bronze star. He was devastated by the news of his beloved older brother’s death. He was haunted by the feeling that if one of them had to die, it should have been him, not his brother.
No support groups. PTSD had not been “discovered”.
War is terrible.
If we do not do everything we can to help Ukraine, our soldiers will soon be fighting yet another war.
My father was also in WWII and served on a destroyer tender. I’m convinced that he had PTSD afterwards but as mentioned there was no help for that problem at the time. Both my parents made sacrifices. My father was gone for long periods at sea and my mother would travel by train around the country trying to meet him the next time his ship came into port. My father was a Republican; my mother a Democrat. But I’m sure both of them would be very concerned today about threats to our democracy.
My Dad was a bomber pilot who flew over Europe. I know you are a bit removed being so high in the air, but 50% of the pilots didn't return. That fact had to be in the back of your mind. He came back to base one time. Evidently they thought he had been shot down, and his things had been removed from his locker. Flew in Korea also. Always had a Moscow Mule in his hand every night-his way of coping I guess.
And my dad would come home from work and drink beer. Self medicating.
He lied about his age to join the Marines in 1942 before he was even out of high school. To be so young and go through 3 years of fighting. I can not even fathom it. Came home to a hero’s welcome. GI bill made him the first in his family to graduate college. Got married. Got a job. Raised a family. Paid his taxes. But the terrors were there. Beer kept them at bay I guess. No support groups. No one to talk to about it. Soldier on.
Sabrina, your husband is an American Hero, a true Patriot, a man of Honor, and respect. I, for one, respect all soldiers, regardless of their military service they serve, they serve to protect all of us, and I deeply thank each and every one of them.
I’m truly sorry he was taken from you, but you have him with you every moment of every day. He remains in your heart, your thoughts, and your prayers, each day. Thank you so very much for sharing this story with us!
Sabina Your late husband was a hero serving his country. Bone Spur Donald is the ultimate loser for how he has denigrated our America as an antiChrist.
Keith, the killer is that they let him do it!! He got away with all those horrible disgusting comments to war heroes and POW's and Gold Star Families, troops everywhere...the slurs and attacks and lies and sleights of hand, the complete inability to grasp the meaning of honor. Then, there was all that strange and outrageous talk about, and noodling with, Putin, the "strong man", Kim Jong Un's "love letters" and the monumental foreign policy clumsiness and gaffs and, yet, the party marched right on behind him playing Yankee Doodle Dandy as if it really didn't matter at all. And MSM kept reporting ridiculous poles about Biden's advancing age acting as if it was impolite to actually report that the "Word Salad Generator-in-Chief" kept smearing poop wherever he went and could not hold up his own end of a third grader conversation. I hope I live long enough to see this disabled humanoid AND his handlers win exactly what they all deserve. Excuse my rant....widow of a Purple Heart veteran who, with consummate dignity, paid for his Purple Heart, all the remaining days of his life. Even so, this man remained forever grateful for his gift of life, however challenging, respectfully remembering the guys who never made it back, at all, from DakTo. I've just recently begun to read his mud stained letters, tucked away for decades, reporting on grunt life in the monsoon swamped, leech infested, sniper ridden jungles. At the very same time, "Bone Spurs" was desperately trying impress "model" types in NYC discos, trying to boost his fragile self esteem, while paling around with NYC sleaze, such as Roy Cohn, reportedly imagining himself as belonging to some kind of a mobster class. Yankee Doodle Dandy Republicans. They will never EVER hold water in my eyes again! IMHO, the whole lot of them deserve the strictest enforcement of "aiding and abetting the enemy". Believe me, I am trying very hard not to post this......
K Barnes !!, It Is Called RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION !! Our Loving GOD ! , Does UNDERSTAND ! HE Does, also SPEAK, About " VENGANCE !, is MINE ! " Thus Sayeth, the LORD ! LORD ! Call in !, Your Children ! WAYWARD MANKIND !, Will NOT, WITHSTAND ! YOUR WRATH !!
“Greater love has no one, than that of laying down one’s life for another”. I’m so very sorry for your loss, but so very grateful for your husband’s service-and yours. Peace be yours. 🙏💙🙏💙🙏
Absolutely obscene how tfg characterized members of the armed services. The depth of his disrespect offends us beyond words. I am so sorry your husband's memory, as well as all those who made the ultimate sacrifice, were so callously dismissed. Know that there are thousands behind the scenes working to get the vote out to see that this heartless monster does not get a second term.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Such a stark contrast to what is being revealed about TFG. I am so sorry for your loss and pray you are surrounded by support and comfort.
What I truly do no understand is how these attitudes of TFG's are ok with his followers. According to one study, less than 50% of MAGA supporters have incomes over $50k. A Brookings report indicates that over 60 percent of 2016 enlistments came from neighborhoods with a median household income between $38,345 and $80,912. So a fair number of MAGA's must have relatives in the military. How are they OK with his contempt for their own relatives?
Yes, but why?? TFG tapped into something stronger than even blue collar patriotism and love of "out troops." We need to learn what it is (fear? hatred? discouragement?) and find a way to reach at least some of his people. Maybe the young?
Chaplain Terry ! TFG Has A REPROBATE heart ! FEAR, HATRED, and DICOURAGMENT, Are The ABSOLUTE Driving Forces, For him , and his ilk ! At This POINT, ONLY JESUS, and HIS HOLY GHOST !, CAN Pull ALL !, out of The ONCOMMING FIRE ! BLESSINGS!
"Jesus and his Holy Ghost" or by whatever other names one calls the "divine" or "Non-physical" as manifested in so many good hearted ordinary people. We just need to wake up more of us!
Chaplain Terry ! ....... WAKE UP !!, is Where, ' The RUBBER !, Meets, THE ROAD !!' SO MUCH !, in AGREEANCE ! TIME !,,, is getting REAL SHORT ! JESUS, Did SAY MY ReTURN, will be, like, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,, A THEIF ! ,,, ,,,, iin THE NIGHT ! . ( IS , " The GUARDSMAN !, .... ... ... ON, HIS POST ??!! ) BLESSINGS !!
No, we can’t. We must keep pressure up. We saw at the mid-terms what happens when we slack up. We ended up with this mess in the House of Representatives we now have. A “cluster-fu*k!”
This just in from a friend, but it is proof positive that those closest to Trump admit that he is a misfit and unfit to be POTUS.
Exclusive: John Kelly goes on the record to confirm several disturbing stories about Trump
Jake Tapper, Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent
Mon, October 2, 2023, 2:58 PM PDT·7 min read
John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president in an exclusive statement to CNN.
Kelly set the record straight with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors attacking US service members and veterans, listing a number of objectionable comments Kelly witnessed Trump make firsthand.
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Those details also include Trump’s inability to understand why the American public respects former prisoners of war and those shot down in combat. Then-candidate Trump of course said in front of a crowd in 2015 that former Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, was “not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” But behind closed doors, sources told Goldberg, this lack of understanding went on to cause Trump to repeatedly call McCain a “loser” and to refer to former President George H. W. Bush, who was also shot down as a Navy pilot in World War II, as a “loser.”
CNN reached out to the Trump campaign Monday afternoon, telling officials there that a former administration official had confirmed, on the record, a number of details about the 2020 Atlantic story, without naming Kelly, and seeking comment. The Trump campaign responded by insulting the character and credibility of retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley, who had nothing to do with this story.
The Atlantic article also described Trump’s 2018 visit to France for the centennial anniversary of the end of World War I, where, according to several senior staff members, Trump said he did not want to visit the graves of American soldiers buried in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris because, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” During that same trip to France, the article reported, Trump said the 1,800 US Marines killed in the Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed.
And Kelly’s statement adds context to a story in the book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, in which Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.”
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”
“I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
The story squares with another recent story from Goldberg in The Atlantic, a profile of retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, in which Trump does not react well to seeing severely wounded Army Captain Luis Avila singing “God Bless America” at a welcome event for the new chairman. “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”
Kelly’s statement also refers to a remark Trump made in response to that same article, which describes Milley, in the closing days of the Trump presidency in 2020, receiving intelligence that the Chinese military feared Trump was about to order a military strike on it. Milley, in a call authorized by Trump administration officials, reassured his Chinese counterparts that such a strike was not going to happen.
That call was first reported in 2021 in the book “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, but Trump said this past week on his social media site that the call was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
Asked for reaction to the suggestion that he deserves execution, Milley told Norah O’Donnell of “60 Minutes” that he wouldn’t “comment directly on those, those things. But I can tell you that this military, this soldier, me, will never turn our back on that Constitution.”
Kelly’s statement to CNN comes days after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson sat down with CNN in an interview promoting her new book, “Enough,” and warned the public that “Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history.”
“Enough,” interestingly, contains a scene in which Hutchinson and then-White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin push back against Goldberg’s 2020 story. Griffin issued a statement to The Atlantic after that story posted denying the report.
Reached for comment over the weekend, Griffin said, “Despite publicly praising the military and claiming to be the most pro-military president, there’s a demonstrable record of Trump bashing the most decorated service members in our country, from Gen. Mattis to Kelly to Milley, to criticizing the wounded or deceased like John McCain. Donald Trump will fundamentally never understand service the way those who have actually served in uniform will, and it’s one of the countless reasons he’s unfit to be commander in chief.”
No other presidential candidate in history has had so many detractors from his inner circle. His former secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN in November 2022, “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”
Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, told CBS in June that “he is a consummate narcissist. And he constantly engages in reckless conduct. … He will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego, ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. Our country can’t, you know, can’t be a therapy session for you know, a troubled man like this.”
Richard- thanks for amassing this material. It is an outrage that Trump's shocking behavior continues to go unpunished and that he views Americans who put others ahead of themselves as losers. When are the public, the courts, going to hold him accountable? How can he make threats against judges and other officers of the court and not be charged with contempt of court? He is the ultimate challenge to the resilience of American institutions. It's almost 2024 and the jury is still out on who will prevail.
True, but this issue has been on the burner for a long, long time - racism. What binds the Evangelicals to Trump is their racism. Christs' teachings (Matthew 25: 34-46) mean nothing. Google "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" These people are manipulated by the oligarchs. Several books address this, including Thomas Frank;s "What's the Matter with Kansas," and HCR's just published, "Democracy Awakening." We're in the battle of our lives right now against the most serious threat to our democracy, and it is coming from Americans.
Isabel Wilkrson, in her book "Caste" lays out the continuing racist caste system in the US as a direct cause of Trump's unlikely success in 2016 and since. The oligarchs supply the money, but caste-conscious racism - the antithesis of "All Men are created equal" - supplies much of the motivation.
I am not familiar with Wilkerson's book. I'd be interested to see how she treats the issue of implicit bias. I just checked her out. Impressive resume. I'll get caste. I grew up in abject poverty in Jim Crow Texas in the '40's and '50's, a white male. My mom, a New Yorker, was telling me as I was going to school barefoot because my only pair of shoes was in the repair shop that I could be anything that I wanted to be, that it was up to me. I took that as fact generally but when I was 20 years old I encountered two phenomena. I was at the Army Language School learning Chinese when I saw a Black soldier and a white soldier sharing the same dorm room. I reacted to it, but I immediately realized that my reaction would be what I came to learn was implicit bias. I also realized that my mom was only correct in a certain respect: I might be able to be what I wanted but it was because I was white and male. I have fought for equal rights for all ever since, putting my wife through medical school in the 1970's when 10% of her Stanford Med School was female. It is now 50%.
We are, perhaps, at the most dangerous point in our nation's history, even more dangerous than the Civil War because the threat is no longer confined to geographical boundaries. It's like a cancer that has metastasized throughout the body.
No need to stoop to his level. Being an adult is recognition of true maturity and will win in the end. Voters will be the judge and jury. God knows how tired we are of all this drama in elections in our beautiful country.
But, how to explain 70 million Republican MAGA members still supporting a low life, a completely worthless human like Donald Trump? My belief is that white Protestant supremacy is more important to them than the democratic process: one person, one vote, majority rule. I dare say that among those racists there are some who unknowingly have some "Black blood."
Kelly did make some efforts to rein Trump in, and quit/got fired for his efforts. Barr rode the crazy train much further before he bailed, and if Trump had prevailed, I am not sure that Barr would have left at all. They both state, as personal revelations, what most people have seen in Trump from the beginning. Hutchinson’s excuse, that she was very very young, and as blinded by power as those old men were blinded by her youth and beauty, but managed to hang on to some inner moral compass, is slightly more believable, but I have quit jobs when I was told to falsify data, or told to tolerate sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace. The fact that 2 of them stuck around throughout the whole process of Trump setting up the treasonous plan to bring down the government does not speak well of their judgement or their character, does it?
My late husband, a third generation Marine, died in Tehran protecting a US Intelligence asset. He was not a loser. That person calls himself a "Christian" and those who follow him call themselves "Christians." They are not following Christ's leadership. John did.
So sorry for your loss. Your husband was a patriot and is a hero. The ex-president is not and will never be either of those things!
He (tffg) isn’t even American or Christian.
Exactly! How he so easily bamboozles so many people is an unfortunate comment on the American educational system as it stands...
While there is lots to criticize about American education, namely the over emphasis on sports, as a long time educator I observed that you have to have the cooperation of the student in some way. I had a government class with no college prep types and because most of them wanted to graduate, they did the work as best they could. Sadly, a lot of them were apathetic about politics and voting. In the few years I taught government, I had one student fail twice and part of that was because he had no encouragement from home. When I first started in the middle 70s, students could make more working in the woods than we did. That did not last and they became more interested in graduating. I have known many teachers who have made a difference for their students. Now with all the chaos created by the pandemic and the wing nuts who want to decide what books kids can read and what can be taught, it has become even a more difficult job.
I like your comment about the wingnuts and the crippling of education: banning books and sanitizing history. As a matter of fact, history should be a little more unsanitized in regards to the westward expansion and some of the wars.
It is amazing to me that what people believe about American history. For me it is always an ongoing process to learn more and it is often not pretty at all. When I was growing up, all of this was under the table, so to speak. NBC news had segment tonight on some students at high schools in north Texas and how upset they are with the removal of hundreds of books and the the refusal to address certain subject matter. The students are organized and they are all very articulate. They actually gave me some hope since they didn't accept it sitting down. My husband has interesting ancestry in terms of the movement west. Some of his ancestors were white people coming in wagon trains and viewing Native Americans as something in the way. He also has Lakota ancestry which puts an entirely different spin on the idea of bringing European values and "civilization" to the West. As I view the current situation, what we have is destruction in a relatively short time.
There are some very good opinion pieces in the NYT about why X is so popular. Both articles relate to emotion rather than cognitive. I ran out of the ability to gift.Paul Krugman & Jamelle Bouie. At the end of Mr Bouie's article , it references another article about why X lies
Perhaps it says more about the American emotional system, which gets more and more infantile every day.
Technically he is an American citizen: his grandfather was born in Germany, so he is a third generation American. However, his behaviour shows that he is culturally some small step up from mafia, doesn't know the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, so you're right imho, that he is not a Christian.
His mother was born in Scotland so tfg is technically an “anchor baby,”
YESSS !, Barbara ! A True 'BOAT ANCHOR ' baby ! ( Leave him, With the TITANIC Crowd ! ( GOD !, was Trying to WAKE UP ! MANKIND even Back Then !! )
Mary Anne MacLeod Trump became a US citizen in 1942.
Trump was born in 1946.
I was thinking that an Amercian citizen commiting treason against the institution he ws elected to serve, is not a true American, but just a traitor. Technically, you are right, he is a third generation immigrant. Yes, I must be more careful about the leaps I make. Thanks!
That he is a third generation American does not make him (or members of Congress who follow him) any less traitors!
Nor is he able to name a single book of the Bible or a verse from it.
Not even "Jesus wept" John 11:35.
And to quote John Kelly on CNN "God help us".
Dave, With FAITH, Our LORD, WILL INTERCEDE !!
THATS ! A Fat AMEN ! " DESCERNMENT DAY !" ( The JUDGMENT ) Is NOT, Going to Bode Well. Even I, AM Supposed to Pray, for him, SOMEHOW ! ( LORD/GOD !, have Mercy ! )
Just have to name a 10 Commandment if you want a quote. Here's a good one for him." I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes when I lay my vengeance on them." Ezekial
EZEKIAL , Was Telling IT !, How it Is ! GOD !, Help MANKIND ! To Realize, God Does LOVE!, BUT GOD, is ALSO a JUST GOD ! There will be No 'FILTH !, in HEAVEN ! Read : John 14, Verse 6
One of my nicknames for him is mafia don because that is exactly how he behaves.
Grandfather was a draft dodger. Left Germany just before WWI and wanted to return right after. Germans refused him readmittance. He's stuck in America. and gets into shady real estate deals some of which include brothels. So you see some of trump's behavior was inherited.
Simply missing a huge chunk of humanity.
ABSOLUTLY, a PLASTIC CHRISTIAN ! ( Remember the ' Two CORINTHIANS Story ! ? ) Our VETERANS ..= SUCKERS , and LOSERS ??!! he NEEDS , as Much Prayer, as The PHAROH ! ( BUT !, That, Didn't Help him !!!, he Got WASHED AWAY ! ) MERCY !!
Death star is not a patriot, a Christian, a decent person. Rather he is a festering cancer on the body politic and a true loser as evidenced by his many failed businesses. He represents all that is bad in humankind.
I never understood the appeal. All he has to do is open his mouth and he reveals his fetid ignorance. That is why I must assume that he is merely a tool, but a tool gone wild with his own imagined "power".
Having known ignorant people who seem to like to remain that way, I can understand his appeal. I had an ex-classmate tell me that she wouldn't want to be well educated like me. I wanted to tell her that I wouldn't want to be a Christian like her, but I refrained. People often fear the educated and their reaction is to sneer and be rude. And follow someone who sticks it to libs and other assorted "dangerous' people. It's loving the class clown.
Ok, but WHY would any sane person want to follow the class clown? A string - a very long, loud, string - of fools: is that what America has devolved to?
You are on the mark. I really was thinking of so many of our Repug elected leaders. But, of course, they were hustling for their suppers just like MSM.
K Barnes, he Definitly, is a 'tool' , of lucifer ! MANKIND, is Now going to Witness, The " TIP !, of the ICEBURG ! " ( Reference, back, to the TITANIC !! ) Murdock, Couldn't AVOID IT !
So far, there is no one way to describe this "person".
Starting with "a cancer"... "a Looser".... "a Coward"........
"Mafia Don" is an insult to genuine Mafiosos.
holds the Bible upside down. Really?
THAT ! Janice , is a BAD spirit ! ( NOT !, the HOLY SPIRIT !)
had to have someone get a Bible for him because he didn't bring one with him.
Of course trumpers are screaming that Biden (even though he played sports) got deferred 5 x like trump. The major difference here is that Biden has respect for our soldiers. He would never support someone like Eddie Gallagher.
Thank you Sabrina, for your sacrifice, and for John's courage and Honor. Our country runs on the blood of heroes--something the so-called "Christians" will never grasp, because they don’t understand the sacrifice of the One they claim to believe in....
ABSOLUTLY !, on the MARK ! , Gus !
So sorry for your loss. Thank you and John for your sacrifices. It is so appreciated.
My uncle was a Marine in the Pacific theater of WWII. He was killed in battle in March 1945, just a few months before the war ended. I did not know him. Every Memorial Day, my family has always made a point to remember and to honor all of our brave fighting men and women, especially those who have passed on.
Blessing to you and your family.
I watched the ceremony for General Milley’s retirement and changing of the guard it’s entirety. You can find it on The White House.gov. It was a simple, beautiful event that underscored the extreme sacrifices our service people and their families make in defense of our nation . It also underscored the mutual respect President Biden and General Milley have for one another. I’m glad I watched it. Such a welcome contrast to TFG.
Thank you, Susan. I've been on a little bit of a holiday and missed that. I have tremendous respect for General Milley, and want to watch the ceremony to honor him and all the other military members who lived up to their commitment to the Constitution and simple honor.
I will add your uncle to the names on my stand when I play my Memorial Day concerts.
What a nice gesture, Ally.
Thank you. Lt Charles Fowler.
So noted, Sky.
Many of us can add quite a few names to your Memorial Day roster Ally. In addition to those painful absolute losses like Sky's. It's enough for me to think you'll be playing for every one of those fathers and sons and brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and mothers who went to work at places like Curtis Wright in Paterson, including my mom when my dad was slogging around on Okinawa... Thank you for your tributes to all who made sacrifices for our Democracy.
BLESSINGS , ALWAYS ! Ally !!
My father was there too. Earned a bronze star. He was devastated by the news of his beloved older brother’s death. He was haunted by the feeling that if one of them had to die, it should have been him, not his brother.
No support groups. PTSD had not been “discovered”.
War is terrible.
If we do not do everything we can to help Ukraine, our soldiers will soon be fighting yet another war.
Enough.
My father was also in WWII and served on a destroyer tender. I’m convinced that he had PTSD afterwards but as mentioned there was no help for that problem at the time. Both my parents made sacrifices. My father was gone for long periods at sea and my mother would travel by train around the country trying to meet him the next time his ship came into port. My father was a Republican; my mother a Democrat. But I’m sure both of them would be very concerned today about threats to our democracy.
My Dad was a bomber pilot who flew over Europe. I know you are a bit removed being so high in the air, but 50% of the pilots didn't return. That fact had to be in the back of your mind. He came back to base one time. Evidently they thought he had been shot down, and his things had been removed from his locker. Flew in Korea also. Always had a Moscow Mule in his hand every night-his way of coping I guess.
And my dad would come home from work and drink beer. Self medicating.
He lied about his age to join the Marines in 1942 before he was even out of high school. To be so young and go through 3 years of fighting. I can not even fathom it. Came home to a hero’s welcome. GI bill made him the first in his family to graduate college. Got married. Got a job. Raised a family. Paid his taxes. But the terrors were there. Beer kept them at bay I guess. No support groups. No one to talk to about it. Soldier on.
Hope that todays veterans have more support.
Sky !, Are 'Younger Ones, Do, BUT, OUR "NAMS" , and Older, Still Struggle ! ( They are Waitin' for Us, to DIE OFF ! )
BLESSINGS, to You, AND, Your Family Sky ! GOD, Blessed Me, to 'come Home' NOW ! , I have Much WORK, Still Left, to DO !
Glad you are home.
Onward and upward!
Thank you.
Condolences, and, thank you for his and your service.
I'm so sorry. Your husband must have been a very brave and honorable man. Trump is so clearly neither.
Sabrina, your husband is an American Hero, a true Patriot, a man of Honor, and respect. I, for one, respect all soldiers, regardless of their military service they serve, they serve to protect all of us, and I deeply thank each and every one of them.
I’m truly sorry he was taken from you, but you have him with you every moment of every day. He remains in your heart, your thoughts, and your prayers, each day. Thank you so very much for sharing this story with us!
Beautifully said, Daniel.
Sabina Your late husband was a hero serving his country. Bone Spur Donald is the ultimate loser for how he has denigrated our America as an antiChrist.
Keith, the killer is that they let him do it!! He got away with all those horrible disgusting comments to war heroes and POW's and Gold Star Families, troops everywhere...the slurs and attacks and lies and sleights of hand, the complete inability to grasp the meaning of honor. Then, there was all that strange and outrageous talk about, and noodling with, Putin, the "strong man", Kim Jong Un's "love letters" and the monumental foreign policy clumsiness and gaffs and, yet, the party marched right on behind him playing Yankee Doodle Dandy as if it really didn't matter at all. And MSM kept reporting ridiculous poles about Biden's advancing age acting as if it was impolite to actually report that the "Word Salad Generator-in-Chief" kept smearing poop wherever he went and could not hold up his own end of a third grader conversation. I hope I live long enough to see this disabled humanoid AND his handlers win exactly what they all deserve. Excuse my rant....widow of a Purple Heart veteran who, with consummate dignity, paid for his Purple Heart, all the remaining days of his life. Even so, this man remained forever grateful for his gift of life, however challenging, respectfully remembering the guys who never made it back, at all, from DakTo. I've just recently begun to read his mud stained letters, tucked away for decades, reporting on grunt life in the monsoon swamped, leech infested, sniper ridden jungles. At the very same time, "Bone Spurs" was desperately trying impress "model" types in NYC discos, trying to boost his fragile self esteem, while paling around with NYC sleaze, such as Roy Cohn, reportedly imagining himself as belonging to some kind of a mobster class. Yankee Doodle Dandy Republicans. They will never EVER hold water in my eyes again! IMHO, the whole lot of them deserve the strictest enforcement of "aiding and abetting the enemy". Believe me, I am trying very hard not to post this......
KB, thank you for posting this….your raw and honest thoughts & emotions speak the truth.
K Barnes !!, It Is Called RIGHTEOUS INDIGNATION !! Our Loving GOD ! , Does UNDERSTAND ! HE Does, also SPEAK, About " VENGANCE !, is MINE ! " Thus Sayeth, the LORD ! LORD ! Call in !, Your Children ! WAYWARD MANKIND !, Will NOT, WITHSTAND ! YOUR WRATH !!
OUR LORDS BLESSINGS ! Unto You ! , K Barnes !
“Greater love has no one, than that of laying down one’s life for another”. I’m so very sorry for your loss, but so very grateful for your husband’s service-and yours. Peace be yours. 🙏💙🙏💙🙏
Thank you, Sabrina. Your husband was a hero; of that there is no doubt.
Amen, Sabrina. Your husband was, indeed, a true Christian. I cannot begin to imagine the depth of your loss and I am so very sorry for it.
Absolutely obscene how tfg characterized members of the armed services. The depth of his disrespect offends us beyond words. I am so sorry your husband's memory, as well as all those who made the ultimate sacrifice, were so callously dismissed. Know that there are thousands behind the scenes working to get the vote out to see that this heartless monster does not get a second term.
KEEP !, Your FAITH ! , Sabrina ! , AND ALL ! of the Rest, of US, That are SUFFERING, OUR LOSSES !
I am so sorry.
All the earlier responses say it indeed for John and yourself, and for everyone who care for what America best stands for.
I’m so sorry for the loss of your husband. Every word you said is true.
Thank you for sharing your story with us. Such a stark contrast to what is being revealed about TFG. I am so sorry for your loss and pray you are surrounded by support and comfort.
What I truly do no understand is how these attitudes of TFG's are ok with his followers. According to one study, less than 50% of MAGA supporters have incomes over $50k. A Brookings report indicates that over 60 percent of 2016 enlistments came from neighborhoods with a median household income between $38,345 and $80,912. So a fair number of MAGA's must have relatives in the military. How are they OK with his contempt for their own relatives?
https://sites.uw.edu/magastudy/demographics-group-affinities/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-the-u-s-military-became-the-exception-to-americas-wage-stagnation-problem/#:~:text=An%20April%202018%20demographic%20analysis,income%20between%20%2438%2C345%20and%20%2480%2C912.
JUST ! ,, pure BLIND ! ( and VACUUM FILLED, Heads !) LORD HAVE MERCY !
Yes, but why?? TFG tapped into something stronger than even blue collar patriotism and love of "out troops." We need to learn what it is (fear? hatred? discouragement?) and find a way to reach at least some of his people. Maybe the young?
Chaplain Terry ! TFG Has A REPROBATE heart ! FEAR, HATRED, and DICOURAGMENT, Are The ABSOLUTE Driving Forces, For him , and his ilk ! At This POINT, ONLY JESUS, and HIS HOLY GHOST !, CAN Pull ALL !, out of The ONCOMMING FIRE ! BLESSINGS!
"Jesus and his Holy Ghost" or by whatever other names one calls the "divine" or "Non-physical" as manifested in so many good hearted ordinary people. We just need to wake up more of us!
Chaplain Terry ! ....... WAKE UP !!, is Where, ' The RUBBER !, Meets, THE ROAD !!' SO MUCH !, in AGREEANCE ! TIME !,,, is getting REAL SHORT ! JESUS, Did SAY MY ReTURN, will be, like, ,,,,, ,,,,, ,,,, A THEIF ! ,,, ,,,, iin THE NIGHT ! . ( IS , " The GUARDSMAN !, .... ... ... ON, HIS POST ??!! ) BLESSINGS !!
Semper Fi, John Hanan, USMC.
I sure hope you’re correct that the tide is turning.
Even if it is, we can not let our guard down.
No, we can’t. We must keep pressure up. We saw at the mid-terms what happens when we slack up. We ended up with this mess in the House of Representatives we now have. A “cluster-fu*k!”
We can NEVER afford to let our guard down.
I agree!
Now all we gotta do is call out his even bigger(!) lie that the 2024 election is already rigged against him!
OMG!
This just in from a friend, but it is proof positive that those closest to Trump admit that he is a misfit and unfit to be POTUS.
Exclusive: John Kelly goes on the record to confirm several disturbing stories about Trump
Jake Tapper, Anchor and Chief Washington Correspondent
Mon, October 2, 2023, 2:58 PM PDT·7 min read
John Kelly, the longest-serving White House chief of staff for Donald Trump, offered his harshest criticism yet of the former president in an exclusive statement to CNN.
Kelly set the record straight with on-the-record confirmation of a number of damning stories about statements Trump made behind closed doors attacking US service members and veterans, listing a number of objectionable comments Kelly witnessed Trump make firsthand.
“What can I add that has not already been said?” Kelly said, when asked if he wanted to weigh in on his former boss in light of recent comments made by other former Trump officials. “A person that thinks those who defend their country in uniform, or are shot down or seriously wounded in combat, or spend years being tortured as POWs are all ‘suckers’ because ‘there is nothing in it for them.’ A person that did not want to be seen in the presence of military amputees because ‘it doesn’t look good for me.’ A person who demonstrated open contempt for a Gold Star family – for all Gold Star families – on TV during the 2016 campaign, and rants that our most precious heroes who gave their lives in America’s defense are ‘losers’ and wouldn’t visit their graves in France.
“A person who is not truthful regarding his position on the protection of unborn life, on women, on minorities, on evangelical Christians, on Jews, on working men and women,” Kelly continued. “A person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about. A person who cavalierly suggests that a selfless warrior who has served his country for 40 years in peacetime and war should lose his life for treason – in expectation that someone will take action. A person who admires autocrats and murderous dictators. A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law.
“There is nothing more that can be said,” Kelly concluded. “God help us.”
In the statement, Kelly is confirming, on the record, a number of details in a 2020 story in The Atlantic by editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg, including Trump turning to Kelly on Memorial Day 2017, as they stood among those killed in Afghanistan and Iraq in Section 60 at Arlington National Cemetery, and saying, “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”
Those details also include Trump’s inability to understand why the American public respects former prisoners of war and those shot down in combat. Then-candidate Trump of course said in front of a crowd in 2015 that former Vietnam POW Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, was “not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.” But behind closed doors, sources told Goldberg, this lack of understanding went on to cause Trump to repeatedly call McCain a “loser” and to refer to former President George H. W. Bush, who was also shot down as a Navy pilot in World War II, as a “loser.”
CNN reached out to the Trump campaign Monday afternoon, telling officials there that a former administration official had confirmed, on the record, a number of details about the 2020 Atlantic story, without naming Kelly, and seeking comment. The Trump campaign responded by insulting the character and credibility of retired Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley, who had nothing to do with this story.
The Atlantic article also described Trump’s 2018 visit to France for the centennial anniversary of the end of World War I, where, according to several senior staff members, Trump said he did not want to visit the graves of American soldiers buried in the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris because, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” During that same trip to France, the article reported, Trump said the 1,800 US Marines killed in the Belleau Wood were “suckers” for getting killed.
And Kelly’s statement adds context to a story in the book “The Divider: Trump in the White House, 2017-2021,” by Susan Glasser and Peter Baker, in which Trump, after a separate trip to France in 2017, tells Kelly he wants no wounded veterans in a military parade he’s trying to have planned in his honor. Inspired by the Bastille Day parade, except for the section of the parade featuring wounded French veterans in wheelchairs, Trump tells Kelly, “Look, I don’t want any wounded guys in the parade.”
“Those are the heroes,” Kelly said. “In our society, there’s only one group of people who are more heroic than they are – and they are buried over in Arlington.”
“I don’t want them,” Trump said. “It doesn’t look good for me.”
The story squares with another recent story from Goldberg in The Atlantic, a profile of retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, in which Trump does not react well to seeing severely wounded Army Captain Luis Avila singing “God Bless America” at a welcome event for the new chairman. “Why do you bring people like that here? No one wants to see that, the wounded.”
Kelly’s statement also refers to a remark Trump made in response to that same article, which describes Milley, in the closing days of the Trump presidency in 2020, receiving intelligence that the Chinese military feared Trump was about to order a military strike on it. Milley, in a call authorized by Trump administration officials, reassured his Chinese counterparts that such a strike was not going to happen.
That call was first reported in 2021 in the book “Peril” by Bob Woodward and Robert Costa, but Trump said this past week on his social media site that the call was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
Asked for reaction to the suggestion that he deserves execution, Milley told Norah O’Donnell of “60 Minutes” that he wouldn’t “comment directly on those, those things. But I can tell you that this military, this soldier, me, will never turn our back on that Constitution.”
Kelly’s statement to CNN comes days after former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson sat down with CNN in an interview promoting her new book, “Enough,” and warned the public that “Donald Trump is the most grave threat we will face to our democracy in our lifetime, and potentially in American history.”
“Enough,” interestingly, contains a scene in which Hutchinson and then-White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin push back against Goldberg’s 2020 story. Griffin issued a statement to The Atlantic after that story posted denying the report.
Reached for comment over the weekend, Griffin said, “Despite publicly praising the military and claiming to be the most pro-military president, there’s a demonstrable record of Trump bashing the most decorated service members in our country, from Gen. Mattis to Kelly to Milley, to criticizing the wounded or deceased like John McCain. Donald Trump will fundamentally never understand service the way those who have actually served in uniform will, and it’s one of the countless reasons he’s unfit to be commander in chief.”
No other presidential candidate in history has had so many detractors from his inner circle. His former secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN in November 2022, “I think he’s unfit for office. … He puts himself before country. His actions are all about him and not about the country. And then, of course, I believe he has integrity and character issues as well.”
Trump’s former attorney general, Bill Barr, told CBS in June that “he is a consummate narcissist. And he constantly engages in reckless conduct. … He will always put his own interests, and gratifying his own ego, ahead of everything else, including the country’s interests. Our country can’t, you know, can’t be a therapy session for you know, a troubled man like this.”
CNN’s Kristen Holmes contributed to this story.
Richard- thanks for amassing this material. It is an outrage that Trump's shocking behavior continues to go unpunished and that he views Americans who put others ahead of themselves as losers. When are the public, the courts, going to hold him accountable? How can he make threats against judges and other officers of the court and not be charged with contempt of court? He is the ultimate challenge to the resilience of American institutions. It's almost 2024 and the jury is still out on who will prevail.
True, but this issue has been on the burner for a long, long time - racism. What binds the Evangelicals to Trump is their racism. Christs' teachings (Matthew 25: 34-46) mean nothing. Google "The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?" These people are manipulated by the oligarchs. Several books address this, including Thomas Frank;s "What's the Matter with Kansas," and HCR's just published, "Democracy Awakening." We're in the battle of our lives right now against the most serious threat to our democracy, and it is coming from Americans.
Isabel Wilkrson, in her book "Caste" lays out the continuing racist caste system in the US as a direct cause of Trump's unlikely success in 2016 and since. The oligarchs supply the money, but caste-conscious racism - the antithesis of "All Men are created equal" - supplies much of the motivation.
I am not familiar with Wilkerson's book. I'd be interested to see how she treats the issue of implicit bias. I just checked her out. Impressive resume. I'll get caste. I grew up in abject poverty in Jim Crow Texas in the '40's and '50's, a white male. My mom, a New Yorker, was telling me as I was going to school barefoot because my only pair of shoes was in the repair shop that I could be anything that I wanted to be, that it was up to me. I took that as fact generally but when I was 20 years old I encountered two phenomena. I was at the Army Language School learning Chinese when I saw a Black soldier and a white soldier sharing the same dorm room. I reacted to it, but I immediately realized that my reaction would be what I came to learn was implicit bias. I also realized that my mom was only correct in a certain respect: I might be able to be what I wanted but it was because I was white and male. I have fought for equal rights for all ever since, putting my wife through medical school in the 1970's when 10% of her Stanford Med School was female. It is now 50%.
Great books, all. I think Wilkerson reads and writes like a poet.
Richard S you are exactly right. It’s the racism.
Yes. It’s racism. It has always been racism.
The bible said Judge not lest ye be judged. Includes Evangelicals too. Yes! we are in a very dangerous time.
We are, perhaps, at the most dangerous point in our nation's history, even more dangerous than the Civil War because the threat is no longer confined to geographical boundaries. It's like a cancer that has metastasized throughout the body.
I don't understand, either, how he can make threats against a judge publicly.
No need to stoop to his level. Being an adult is recognition of true maturity and will win in the end. Voters will be the judge and jury. God knows how tired we are of all this drama in elections in our beautiful country.
But, how to explain 70 million Republican MAGA members still supporting a low life, a completely worthless human like Donald Trump? My belief is that white Protestant supremacy is more important to them than the democratic process: one person, one vote, majority rule. I dare say that among those racists there are some who unknowingly have some "Black blood."
Kelly did make some efforts to rein Trump in, and quit/got fired for his efforts. Barr rode the crazy train much further before he bailed, and if Trump had prevailed, I am not sure that Barr would have left at all. They both state, as personal revelations, what most people have seen in Trump from the beginning. Hutchinson’s excuse, that she was very very young, and as blinded by power as those old men were blinded by her youth and beauty, but managed to hang on to some inner moral compass, is slightly more believable, but I have quit jobs when I was told to falsify data, or told to tolerate sexual abuse and harassment in the workplace. The fact that 2 of them stuck around throughout the whole process of Trump setting up the treasonous plan to bring down the government does not speak well of their judgement or their character, does it?
It does not speak well at all.